Labour hit 42% in latest MORI poll
A new Ipsos-MORI poll in the Sun on Monday has voting intentions of CON 34%(-2), LAB 42%(+1), LDEM 14%(-2). There are no dates available for the fieldwork yet – sometimes MORI’s polls do take slightly longer to reach the papers, especially the monthly face-to-face polls, so this may have been taken prior to the ICM and YouGov polls that were published over the weekend.
The 42% recorded for Labour’s support equals their highest level of support so far this Parliament – a level last reached in a MORI poll back in 2005 before David Cameron became Conservative leader. 14% is the lowest the Liberal Democrats have recorded from MORI this Parliament and, though we won’t know until we find out the fieldwork dates, it might well have been despite being conducted during their conference. As I said in my predictions for what would happen in an early election, I suspect the Liberal Democrats are suffering as they once did through a lack of media profile, and that in the event of an election campaign they would probably do better than this.
The poll also supposedly contains a varient on the voting intention question asking how people would vote if Gordon Brown offered a referendum on the EU Treaty which gives Labour a 17 point lead. When, a few months ago, all the polls used to contain a question asking how people would vote if Gordon Brown was leader I got bored to my back teeth of religiously adding a caveat about them being purely hypothetical questions and that the public aren’t actually very good at predicting how they’ll react to future events. Given how accurate they were at predicting a hypothetical future then, I trust everyone will give the appropriate pinch of salt to this hypothetical voting intention question.
UPDATE: The poll was conducted between the 20th and 22nd of September, so is bang up to date. There was also a question that asked how people would vote if Brown ruled out a referendum on the EU treaty which showed Labour’s lead slipping to only 1 point. I’d dismiss this question along with the one above! More interestingly the poll also suggests a far, far lower lead for the no camp when people were asked how they’d vote in a referendum on the EU treaty, finding that 38% would vote against it and 32% in favour. This is but a single poll, and others have all shown a much bigger lead for the No camp, but it does suggest that such a referendum could potentially be winnable for Brown.
Filed under: MORI, Voting Intention
As you said,the dates of the fieldwork are not yet known,however an 8% lead on the run in to the conference will push whether the lead will hit double figures with the usual conference boost,by the start of the Conservative week.Not a good position for Cameron to try and stand his ground.All the timings are going against him.
October election????If it was to happen it will be announced during the Conservative conference.A couple more polls like this and how long before it becomes too favourable not to go.
Over to you Gordon.
wow, pretty awesome poll for Labour. Makes me want to be sick.
I am not convinced by this 14% Lib Dem Figure though. Not at all.
If we assumed that the Lib Dems went up to 20 and all of that came from Labour, and the gap narrowed between Lab and Con by a few percent during the campaign, as it generally does, then the parties could be on partity. But I have has quite a lot to drink tonight…
Assuming Labour was to offer a referendum on the EU Treaty and imagine Labour were to poll 49% to 32% for the Conservatives, it only leaves 19% for all others. Was this framed in the context of a straight two-party choice?
It’s all fanciful stuff really. Typing those figures into the electoral calculus, with the Lib Dem’s on 14%, would see, for example, Labour winning 5 of the 6 seats in Cornwall! The Lib Dems wouldn’t win a single seat anywhere. There’d be 5 SNP, 4 PC and Wyre Forest’s Richard Taylor (IKHHC).
Yes, we can all safefully take this with a pinch of salt. It ain’t gonna happen.
I wonder if Murdoch wants to back Labour, with the aim of ‘persuading’ Brown into holding a referendum, to ensure that he can.
Personally I’d put this (42%) at the high end of Labour’s potential electoral vote share. A vote share 49% has out of reach for anyone for a long time (ie, about 50 years) thanks to the Liberals/LibDems. In 1997 they were polling less than this and got 43%.
I know this just my opinion, but Brown can’t really be that popular, nor can Cameron and particularly Campbell (14%?) be that useless. Perhaps people are getting excited because they think there’s an election around the corner?
It does seem amazing, I must say. All I will say is there is a lot of information flying about at the moment, and while it all points the same way, I struggle to believe some of it. I personally do not think Cameron is as deeply unpopular as these figures suggest. I simply don’t think he has done enough wrong to merit deep unpopularity, and was doing so well such a short time ago. I don’t know, but people seem to be very fickle. Such is the nature of univeral suffrage…what Robert Lowe said in 1867 opposing the widening of the frnchise…a shame no-one listened to him
42% would be a triumph for Labour. In fact, I think anythung over 40% would be. In tterms of media backing, I would imagine the Murdoch press will all back Brown. The Sun is the big one though. The Times is less important.
The second biggest is the Daily Mail, which, although it will back the Tories, has not sone so with nany conviction in 2001 or 2005- where it had celebrity stories on the front page on polling day both times. Simply put, it didn;t want to back the loser, and it is not a courageous newspaper (despite what it may think)
The Mirror, by contrast, has a picture of Michael Howard with a stake through his heart with the headline ‘Vote Labour’- which told me all I needed to know as I looked down at the papers at my newsagent on polling day.
Polls always tend to overestimate Labour’s vote come election day.I always knock between 3%-2% off Labour’s vote and add a couple of points to the LD vote-oddly enough polls are pretty accurate at predicting the Tory vote though..
Fair play to Anthony.I remember all his warnings about the hypothetical Brown versus Cameron questions.Did we listen?
Anthony – I know I was very quick responding to this poll,but what happened to my remarks to it?
It will be very interesting to see how the polls are looking after the Labour conference. All Parties seem to be heading for the positions they held pre Ireq.
I agree with Brian Swift on the liikely Labour vote.
The 2005 election was for a full term parliament and that is what we should get. However, whoever happens to be leader at any one time is irrelevant to me, but I am sure others will disagree!
Although I’m not a fan of the Lib Dems I’m less of a fan of two party states so I hope this poll is wrong.
Two things of possible note, one the referendum on the EU treaty polling suggests that Labour’s lead (or a good part of it) isn’t that firm, and two with all the problems Cameron has had 34% is a good result.
I think an element of browns success may well be down to Blair. One of the things that many people didn’t like about blair and often joked about was his presidential style.
However an effect of that may well be that people now see politics and who to vote for more in terms of the leader than the party. The two have always been linked but perhaps the balance has shifted.
Thus in the past it was ideologically Labour v Tory first and then Thatcher v Foot, or Kinnock, now it’s far more Brown v Cameron, and then Ideology. I suppose you could argue that it was Thatcher with her dominance the cracked if not broke the mold.
Now of course the simple way to test this would be for YouGov to do a poll to try it down with questions like.
1) Which most influences your decision to vote, Party Leader, Party Front Bench, Party Policy, the Party in particular.
2) Where do you think the power in Britain lies, With the PM, With the Cabinet, With the Parliamentary Party, with the Party in Power.
3) Would you favour a directly electedc President like in france or the USA, No I want the current System, Yes like France able to appoint the Government from any Party, Yes like the USA with full execuitive powers.
4)Would your consider switching your vote if your party had a weak leader.
5) Would you consider switching your vote from a strong leader if you had worries about the Party.
6) Would you switch your vote from a strong leader if you thought he was at odds with his party on some key issues.
Not i’d admit the greatest set of questions but an attempt to try to get under the skin on what people are most influenced by. Polls as usefull for that.
Peter.
I agree the polls do tend to show Labour support 2- 3% higher than they actually get, that is because 2-3% of them are too lazy to go and vote! The Tory vote is usually quite accurate because they will go out to get their way, come hell or high water!
I think if Labour had a 3-4% lead in an election they would have done remarkably well and the Tories remarkably badly if they only poll 1% more than last time. The Lib vote will certainly be higher than this poll suggests, I would say 18% or so. The problem for the Libs is that Ming Campbell, who is a decent, hard working and loyal man has the same type of image problem that Ian Duncan Smith had.
Risky if Brown calls it but it might just be his best chance! Imagine the pressure on him when the polls next weekend show Labour 10/11% ahead which they will! Poor old Gordon, bet he didn’t expect this! For that matter, poor old Cameron – I bet he didn’t too!
I don’t think Brown wants to call an election due to his natural cautiousness, but if he keeps getting polls showing Labour on 42% he may be forced to call one against his own better judgement because so many people in the party might say that things can only go down from here.
Apparenly, if Brown rules out a referendum on the EU Treaty then Labour’s lead slips to 1%.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004240000-2007440338,00.html
Now, Murdoch’s aim is, surely, to ‘force’ Brown into holding one. The Sun may very well want to endorse Labour again and is concerned that no pledge to hold a referendum would make it untenable for it to do so.
So, we have a 1% lead if a referendum ruled-out and a 17% lead if a referendum is to be held. Where does that leave the 8% headline Labour lead?
Interesting that 38% would vote against and 32% in favour, with 15% undecided, while 15% say they wouldn’t vote. Where are these 80% who’d vote against?
Nevertheless, the campaign for a referendum is fast becoming a ‘big tent’ movement. It is imperative Brown takes heed since Labour’s electoral success, to a great degree, is dependent on it being a ‘big tent’ party.
Anthony.
The Sun pie chart does indeed show 38 against the treaty amendment and 32 for. However, if you look at Pascoe Watson’s analysis you will see he talks of a ‘real nail biter’ with 46 against and 44 in favour. I’m not sure what to make of that but he must have had access to all the MORI figures. Perhaps his figures consisted only of those ‘certain to vote’?
On the Sun campaign generally I think the ridiculous hyperbole ‘as grave a threat as the Nazis in 1940′ won’t convince many people. One can, of course, make a case against the proposals but this is so over he top it risks discrediting the campaign.
If GB does go this October, I imagine he will not sign up to anything a week before the GE. On the contrary he may pick a fight and threaten a veto unless his ‘red lines’ are met in full.
An election in May 2008 would have to be called at around the end of March; far too early for ratification to be completed as Andy Grice tried to argue in the Independent. He would therefore have signed up to the Treaty and have to defend the referendum U turn; arguably the most difficult posture.
A GE in May 2009 could be post ratification which would present David Cameron with a tricky dilemma; threaten to tear up a ratified Treaty or be outflanked by UKIP as ‘weak’.
Are we really to believe that 16% of voters would change the way they voted just because of the EU treaty.
If that is the case, Brown must perform a U turn. He will look like a wuzzock after having ruled it out so many times, but for this kind of swing it would be suicidee not to.
I don’t believe any of the figures reg. the EU treaty from MORI even one iota personally.
I think the whole EU treaty thing is little more than a fixation for the Sun. again list the publics top ten priorities and it won’t make the top five. ask people if they want a vote on anything and a majority will say yes, but that doesn’t make it a priority.
The Tories have tried too make Europe the big issue in the last three elections plus and a fat lot of good has done them. Best policy for Cameron is to say
“Yes we think it shuld go to a refendum and thats what we’ll do, but this election is about a lot more than Europe and I’d like to talk about what we’ll do here in Britain and leave the people the choice on Europe”.
It gets the referendum message across without banging on about it.
Peter.
Is there always this plethora of polls at this time of year? I found this site (thank goodness) when I was growing suspicious that the media were under-reporting polls after the last election, so I’m a bit of a newcomer.
It strikes me that Brown will probably call an election the next time he thinks he can win it, but not this time. I suspect he will get the equivalent of Lady T’s handbag out at the first sign of his treaty red lines being crossed, and therefore score extra points with Murdoch. I also suspect he’d like to see what happens in the Boris Johnson v Ken Livingstone battle next spring, and so I think I’m with “blue moon” on this one.
John T, not normally. There’s lots at the moment because of Northern Rock and speculation over the election.
Blue Moon, there’s a separate set of questions in which people are invited to say if they are strongly for/against the treaty, or inclined for/against the treaty.
Adding strongly/inclined for makes 44%. Adding strongly/inclined against makes 46%. But those strongly opposed outnumber those strongly in favour by 21% to 10%.
Thanks Anthony.
I think the clamour for a referendum , and for a General Election, will recede once the pollsters have finished this round, though the political journalists will be able to churn out pieces until November. I sometimes get the impression that journalists (and some politicians) find it easier/more entertaining to discuss strategems rather than the substance of the issues. In that spirit, I agree with Cllr Peter Cairns that Cameron shouldn’t say anything of any consequence.( About anything, in my view).
John T,
No change there then…..
Peter.
John T – early election speculation should fade away after October 9th (the last date a November 1st election can be called) unless Brown rules it out or calls it.
I’ve heard very little to suggest an election later in November is a possibility that’s under consideration, so I expect once the last date for 1st November has passed the speculation will die off a bit until it’s time for speculation over a spring election.
Clamour for a referendum? Not where I come from where people recognise one can hardly have a referendum on a document – do we vote yes / no on each sentence? Each Clause? Each word? Or is the ‘clamour’ merely the normal anti EU little Englanders who don’t recognise the Empire is dead. As the journalist AA Gill wrote- England no longer makes history, it merely curates it. Why cant we take a positive role in the most important change in European history since WW2 rather than merely try to make England an historic theme park?
Saw pages and pages of the Sun today going on about a referendum.Is this really that important? Or is it a case similar to Harold Wilson’s ‘pound in your pocket’ situation in 1970 when it was clear in retrospect that a lot of people were lying to the pollsters. Of course we don’t know if Brown told Murdoch he wouldn’t sigh the Treaty.Out of interest do these polls only cover UK residents – what about the people in France / Spain?
Brown does seem to like all this plotting – I know he denied he plotted against Blair but there does seem a pattern evolving.Does the electorate like politicians who seem awfully pleased with themselves – I thought that was one of Cameron,s problems. When you look at Brown’s situation – a dire balance of payments problem – high PSBR – high loss of manufacturing jobs – low productivity growth in the public sector it’s very similar to Denis Healey.
I think Brown is a great strategist rather than a plotter, I also think that he can be incredibly strong, something that might come out of the current Labour conference and be reflected in future polls. I still don’t think there will be an election until 2009; Brown can have 2 more years in power before he needs to think about calling an election, during that time he might be able to increase that 42%, for the last 10 years we have heard that the economy is about to collapse but never has.
I think Brown should call an election now. I thin the Labour sympathisers who believe he will improve from this position are extremely optimistic, and I am being polite
Yes, Lukw, it’s because us Labour sympathisers are optimistic in our hopes and aspirations. What I liked most about Brown’s speech was it’s tone. By that I mean the fact he DIDN’T ‘go to town’ on Cameron or Campbell. He set the tone; while any mean-spirited scathing attack on the part of Cameron against Brown could turn voters off. Many voters aren’t hyper-partisan, one way or another.
Which brings me to the polls, I don’t think Labour will poll as much as 42% come a general election. The Lib Dems will certainly poll more than 14%; thanks, to some extent, by Labour voters casting tactical votes in their favour.
Will Murdoch’s dislike of Brown’s refusal to back a Treaty referendum matter? Or does Brown feel he can face down Murdoch? Has Murdoch overplayed his hand like Cecil King did v Wilson in 1968.Of course Wilson lost the next election.
Dave- I know, one of them even brought me a drink yesterday
I agree that Brown’s tone was impressive, and I also appreciated the non-partisan nature of the Speech. That is also good tactics if he is trying to reach out to Tory leaners. Slaming the Tories might not enthuse such people. And obviously people who are hyper-partisan won’t be swayed, so in a strictly pragmatic sense there’s no point talking about them.
I still thought the speech was flat and dull though; it sounded like a budget speech.
Anthony
What do you make of Forecast UK’s efforts to add up regional samples from one or two pollsters to come up with regional forecasts of the current situation and hence national totals of seats?
I am highly dubious myself because they are adding up small unrepresentative samples. Looking at some of the ‘predictions’ the LDs would be down to 1 seat in Scotland. Also Labour are seen to be romping away in the South and collapsing in the Midlands which is counter-intuitive, I would have thought.
Any views?
The message I took from Browns speech was “Look I am not Blair”, and that went down great in the hall and probably with many core Labour voters.
The appeal to floating middle England particularly Tories about crime and the “British jobs for British Worker” thing is a bit tabloid as indeed is the whole British theme .
What we didn’t get is any overall theme or indeed vision, it was more ” I am pretty good, things are good so stick with me”.
Given that along with a government of the talents he seems to be trying to rebuild the New labour coalition around himself and Britishness I wonder if he has the skills to do it and if it will be acceptable now ten years on.
His so called renewal will need to offer more than he has shown so far, as countering the Tories may not be enough if Cameron tries to portray Labour as running out of ideas.
Bring back Matron is hardly the minimum wage or independence for the BoE is it. A decade ago New Labour were offering real change not more of the same. Now the boots on the other foot.
I think right now the idea of an early election seems to me a good move for Brown as with a slowing economy and the tensions in the big tent he’s trying to construct I think he may struggle in the new year.
As to “Events”, next weeks Panorama could create jitters in the housing market, the last thing he and Darling need.
Peter.
Note that the Mori/Sun poll was NOT their normal monthly poll which is presumably still to come but a special poll for the Sun with a sample size of around 1,000 compared to their usual 2,000 odd . The detailed data is on their website .
Blue moon – I think you’ve said yourself on Mike’s blog, national polls are only weighted overall, not within individual regions, so they won’t necessarily be particularly representative.
That said, short of actual regional polls they are pretty much all we’ve got to go on, so while I wouldn’t give them too much weighted, I wouldn’t dismiss them entirely. Just make sure (a) you are clear about exactly what regions they are based upon and (b) they are collating enough data to give a reasonable sample size, some polls have less than 100 people in Wales for example, so you’d need at least 5 or 6 polls to get a meaningful sample.
For EU treaty read Willian Hague’s 2001 election success with ’save the pound’. The Sun and Murdoch might like to think voters are overly concerned with europe but they ain’t.
The economy,public services and crime. If you’re talking about anything else the voters aren’t listening.
Brown is already arguing that the treaty has opt-outs for the UK that constitute substantive differences compared to the constitution (at least for the UK).
Isn’t he going to kick up a big fuss at the Lisbon summit in order to show that his red lines haven’t been crossed?
And if he’s called an election for 25 October or 1 November, then other EU countries will be reluctant to push through anything controversial in case it let’s in a more eurosceptic Tory government.
Peter,
“As to “Events”, next weeks Panorama could create jitters in the housing market, the last thing he and Darling need.”
So am I getting this right. Panorama COULD create jitters in the housing market that it otherwise wouldn’t if the programme wasn’t aired. Grossly irresponsible, if that’s the case. Why create jitters if there isn’t anything for certain to be jittery about?
Dave Hawk,
If it’s true that to get commission agents have been prompting people to lie about there income and there is therefore the prospect of a UK sub prime issue, then they should say so, as we have a right to know.
Otherwise it’s the emporers new clothes where we all know he’s naked but don’t mention it for fear of what will happen. If there has been irresponsible lending then pretending there hasn’t been won’t make it go away.
Peter.
Peter,
Thanks for clarifyng the subject matter of Panorama. I read something about it on Ceefax and gather it is now subject to an investigation by the FSA.
The fallout from the loss in confidence in the US sub-prime mortgage market is bad enough without, IF it comes to that, one of our very own.
Just who the hell are the “Pollsters” “Polling?”
Poles?.
“Just who the hell are the “Pollsters” “Polling?”
Poles?.”
Always a rib tickler.I spent several days in a different forum attempting to explain to a virulently anti Labour poster that just because he personally hadn’t been polled did not mean the polls were fixed or a result of ‘new Labour spin’.In the end I gave up, life’s too short .
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